1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a game control method and a server device suitable for developing a social network among a plurality of users in a social game such as a fighting game or a card game which registered users play one-on-one.
2. Description of Related Art
Social game is defined as a “Game provided on a Social Networking Service. Social games are played via the internet and, unlike conventional video games, it is not necessary to purchase hardware and software in advance and, in general, it can be played for free using a computer or hand phone with internet connectivity. While a social game can be registered for and initiated with free of charge generally, its business model is to offer various items by charging on a deferred payment basis the registered users hoping to be advantageous in the game. As a social game is a game using the internet, unlike conventional game software provided as a software package, it is possible to manage with updates such as adding new functions. Further, one of the characteristics of social games is, with a comparatively easy operation, it can be enjoyed easily.
Another definition is as follows. Social game is a game deployed on an application platform provided by a social networking service. Social game may be also called as a “Social Networking Service Game”. Social game is an online game successfully involving social relationships among SNS users within the game system and in general, is operated in the internet browser or on an installed application of the registered users' client terminals.
In general, in a social game, determination of a game operation and recording of game information is conducted on the server device and the client terminal corresponds to a display device for the determined operation.
However, the inventors of the present invention thinks that it may be an important element to cause, in some social games where all the operations for generating movies to display various movements of characters appearing in the game in some social games are performed by the server device, the controller including the CPU of the client terminal to execute part of the operation processes in future game.
Under such situation, in social games, the client terminal can be selected without any restriction on functions or types and it is possible to deploy on an information device or information tools such as a hand phone, smart phone or PC, which are already widely used.
Hence, the strength of a social game is to be able to access a large number of people and social games have been increasing the market share in the game industry.
It is said that the price reduction on consumer game devices in summer 2011 was for the purpose of countering social games by in consideration of the disadvantage of the consumer game devices that dedicated hardware is required to play a game.
Most of the titles are made based on the concept of gathering many registered users widely and the content of a game is very simple and can be played in a very short time, for example, on a work break. On the contrary, a game can be played intermittently in a short period of time, in other words, a social game differs from consumer games and arcade games in that a game can be played easily, and it can be imagined that it is an approach method necessary for social games. That is to say, it is totally the opposite idea to a game design for entertaining users to make them deeply involved in the game world.
Those players who are engrossed with this type of game do not consider a difficult or intricate game as a “challenging game” but consider it as a “boring game” or “bothering game”.
However, there still are many who enjoy both of those conventional difficult games and social games, considering conventional games and social games as separate games.
The basic play of many titles is “free to play” and ultrahigh-spending registered users, who spend a large amount of real money on online games and account for about 3% of all registered users, and registered users who spend about a few thousand Japanese yen per month are the major source of profit.
Although 70 to 80% of the registered users play totally free of charge, they are important for game providers as they may become chargeable registered users in the future, they may become a hunting target who are easily defeated by money spending users in a match-up element among users, and they may act as a loser necessary for the spending users to feel superior thinking “I am strong and I am superb.”
As such, the characteristics of a social game is that, by lowering the hurdle to participate in a game compared to conventional consumer games which require users to purchase a dedicated gaming device and play with dedicated software, registered users who spend a lot of money to be advantageous in the game, and registered users who play for free not willing to be advantageous in the game, and registered users who are in the middle and willing to play by interacting with each other are able to play the game interacting with a wide range of people.
When a match-up game such as a fighting or card game where registered users play a one-on-one match-up online was applied to a social game, both of the users in the match-up were required to maintain a constant internet connection.
However, as an online match-up game cannot be played if users become offline during the game or the connection is disrupted due to the change in connection condition, the social game with users who prefer to play in a short time between their errands was not suitable for this type of social game. Therefore, there has been no genre such as a fighting game or card game in a social game, or very few if any.
In addition, in shooting games, since many users wish for short-time games, there have been not so many social games of this genre. Furthermore, in general, in case of a social game, since the game calculation process is executed not on the user terminal such as smart phones but on the server side, the story of the game can be changed while researching the preferences of users. Therefore various events are sometimes performed by separating by the day of the week and time.
In such events, a challenge in which a certain rare item can be obtained by clearing a mission which appears for a limited time is set to attract players.
However, such a challenge had been hardly considered as making use of a state that the user terminal which is not operated by a player is not started as described above but the game program is constantly executed on the server.
The reason for this is that the event needs to be announced to player in advance. Therefore, it is necessary to allow a sufficient time to make an event known to players before generating an event.
(Problems in Fighting Games and Card Games)
As one method, the inventors of the present invention came up with a game in which the order of input actions such as attack and guard in a fighting game or the order of cards used in a card game is set in advance and a match-up is played with other users at a predetermined timing based on the preset contents. However, although this enables to solve the issue to avoid a situation where it was impossible to continue due to the communication cut or game stop by user's secede, there was still an issue of lack of close social interactions among users in social games. For example, in a strategic type of game where registered users are required to expand their territory, each registered user becomes the owner of the territory and form alliances with other registered users or become dependent after a loss. This provides the social amusingness of a social game. However, in a one-on-one match-up game such as a fighting or card game, it is difficult to create a situation where users are required to cooperatively accomplish the mission, and also difficult for the registered users to find benefits from making an alliance.
The inventors of the present invention thought it is necessary to have a game control enabling to develop a social network among registered users, to give the benefit to registered users belonging to a certain group and to organically relates to a fighting and card game.
In addition, merely executing the game with another player connected by the network by operating the character of the player's own avatar in an online match-up game is no different from online competitions in arcade games or match-up games using personal computers. Moreover, there has been the problem that the player's own character can only be raised by the player him/herself. That is, even when the player is not playing the game, the part which is mainly in charge of the game control process is the server as described above in the social network games. The inventor of the present invention thought of constructing a new growing game by making good use of this hardware-like environment.
Furthermore, in a fighting game, a match-up between an opponent character controlled by the controller of the server and an avatar character (ally character or operated character) which can be operated by using a touch panel of the user's (game player's) game terminal of the client as an input device is executed, the communication timing between the server which calculates the game process as mentioned above and the game terminal which can be normally conceived is as follows:
That is, it would be so configured that every time the game player operates the touch panel of the game terminal, the operational signal made on the touch panel is transmitted from the game terminal to the server. However, in the case where such a construction is employed, card games and like game, in which frequent operation is not made by the game player, do not involve such frequent transmission of the operational signals, while in case of a fighting game, the frequency increases. Therefore, when the communication environment worsens or like situation occurs even for a moment, communication errors may occur, or a delay in the communication might have affected the victory or defeat of the fighting game.
Therefore, the inventors of the present invention conceived of a configuration in which the game programs are dispersed and stored in advance in the server and the game terminal only for a specific OS of cellular phones was provided, and part of the game program is stored in the storage unit of the game terminal to be executed by the controller of the game terminal, so that the number of communication between the server and game terminal is minimized, to overcome the problems mentioned above.
In particular, dispersing the program itself in such a manner to perform operation processes by different controllers is not especially novel in the computer technology. However, in order to reduce the possibility that the game outcome is affected by the communication environment, there has been some technical problems that the calculation process of which part should be executed by the controller (CPU) on the game terminal side, i.e., the division of roles of the controller of the game terminal and the controller of the server, and the structure of the communication timing should be paid attention to.
(Problems of Shooting Games)
In the case of the shooting game, match-up types and such games in which boss characters are defeated to sequentially clear the stages (boss characters are set for each stage in advance) are commonly found, merely applying a shooting game in which stages are cleared to a social game does not make good use of the hardware-like environment of the social game itself as described above. The inventors of the present invention thus thought if they could create a new challenge.
The same applies to the shooting games as to the fighting games mentioned above. No delay in communication should occur in such a situation that a number of missiles shot by the opponent character are dispersed around the operated character (for example, fighter aircraft) and coming after the operated character, or any influence on the victory or defeat of the game or incapability of the continuation of the game due to the occurrence of interruption in the communication should be avoided.